Engagement Overview
The Rocket Pro Insight Workshop and Engagement were designed to develop and implement human-centered solutions that improve the mortgage process for all parties involved, from mortgage managers and underwriters to home buyers and sellers. The engagement began with a design thinking workshop to identify the needs, goals, and pain points of the client, their stakeholders, and the realtors using the product. The workshop was followed by a year-long contract in which our consulting UX team developed and implemented solutions based on the workshop's findings.
Goals:
1. Identify the needs, goals, and pain points of the client and their stakeholders related to the mortgage process.
2. Develop and implement solutions that improve visibility and communication throughout the mortgage process.
3. Improve the experience of all parties involved in the mortgage process, from mortgage managers and underwriters to
home buyers and sellers.
4. Ensure that the solutions developed are user-centered and meet the needs of the client and their stakeholders.
5. Develop a strong relationship with the client and their team that will enable ongoing collaboration and support.
Outcomes:
1. A clear understanding of the needs, goals, and pain points of the client and their stakeholders related to the mortgage process.
2. Prototypes and feature solutions that improve visibility and communication throughout the mortgage process.
3. An Improved experience for all parties involved in the mortgage process, resulting in increased client satisfaction and an improved
reputation for the client.
5. A strong relationship with the client and their team that enables ongoing collaboration and support.
6. A streamlined and efficient mortgage process that saves time and resources for all parties involved.
My Roles
Lead Senior Product Design Consultant
My role was to co-facilitate the design thinking workshop and lead the consulting UX team in the extended year-long contract with the client. I worked closely with the client's Product team to identify their needs, goals, and pain points related to the mortgage process and collaborated with the consulting UX team to develop and implement a variety of new features to meet these needs.
Key Responsibilities
Facilitate & Prototype:
• Co-Facilitate the Design Thinking Workshop
• Oversee and participate in stakeholder interviews, and discussions designed to understand the client's needs, goals, and pain points.
• Guide the team through the ideation, prototyping, and testing phases of the workshop.
• Ensure that the workshop was on track to meet the desired outcomes.
Lead & Design:
• As the lead UX consultant during the post-workshop engagement, my responsibilities included:
• Collaborating with the consulting UX team to develop and implement solutions that met the client's needs.
• Assigning tasks to team members and ensuring that they were completed on time and to the required quality.
• Providing guidance and mentoring to clients and consulting team members to help them develop their skills and expertise.
• Conduct regular check-ins with the team to track progress, identify challenges, and provide support.
Manage:
• Manage Client Relationships by building and maintaining relationships with the client's team.
• Communicating regularly with the client to ensure that their needs are being met.
• Presenting findings, prototypes, and solutions to the client in a clear and compelling manner.
Design Thinking Innovation Workshop
Day 1: Empathize and Define
Morning:
Stakeholder presentations of research, interviews, and the current state of the RPI product to understand the challenges and pain points that each group experiences during the mortgage process.
Afternoon:
Research analysis and insight gathering to define the problem we were trying to solve. Vote for alignment on the two key problems to be solved.
Day 2: Ideate
Morning:
Brainstorm potential solutions to the problem by generating a range of ideas. Vote for alignment on potential solutions.
Afternoon:
Break up into two teams for Time-boxed solution iteration sessions using sketching, mind-mapping, and crazy eights to expand on solution ideas
Day 3: Prototype
Morning:
Develop low-fidelity mockups or clickable prototypes that include key features such as the REA dashboard, mortgage tracker, and communication tools.
Afternoon:
Present concept ideas to the full team and vote for alignment on which concepts will best solve the defined problems.
Day 4: Test and Refine
Morning:
Test mockups and prototypes with users and present findings to the group
Afternoon:
Iterate based on user feedback and get set up another round of testing for the morning session.
Day 5: Present to Stakeholders
Morning:
Test updated concepts with users and document findings. Prepare for the final presentation to key stakeholders.
Afternoon:
Each team presents its ideas, concepts, prototypes, and iterations to key stakeholders. The groups' concepts are validated or invalidated based on the value provided to users in the testing phase.
Personas & User Journeys
Primary Personas
We created a series of proto-personas and narrowed our proto-personas down to three primary personas. Our personas were developed from interviews our team conducted with realtors at different points in their careers.
User Journeys
We created a series of proto-personas and narrowed our proto-personas down to three primary personas. Our personas were developed from interviews our team conducted with realtors at different points in their careers.
Feature set Overview
Throughout the engagement, our team worked with client-side product owners and managers to redesign a variety of features to allow REAs and their clients to communicate better while having greater data visibility into all aspects of the mortgage process. The list below highlights the majority of features we created or redesigned throughout the engagement.
• Insights Dashboard
• Client List
• Offer Trigger
• Manage Profile Settings
• Notification Preferences
• Closing
• Permissions
• Transactional Emails
• Loan Details Rail Iterations
• Appraisal
• Title
• Loan Details Architecture
•Account Create Agency Field
• Approval Letter
Dashboard
Insights Dashboard Desktop
During the Design Thinking innovation workshop, we learned realtors wanted to have more visibility into client leads, where how leads were being generated, and the value of the leads they were receiving. We developed a visual dashboard that organized lead data entered into RPI so our clients could better track, forecast, and analyze all of their lead data in one place.
In addition to Lead analysis, we also built features that would help realtors track, analyze and forecast earnings based on current and forecasted housing market conditions.
Client List
Overview
The Client List was designed with input from and tested by realtors to ensure they have quick access to their client's loan information at the office and on the go. A glance view allows realtors to see their client's loan status and updates in one location to keep their clients up to date while helping to move the loan process forward.
Table Design
Client List includes the key data points realtors need and utilizes a convenient table design to sort data.
Search Functionality
The built-in search functionality allows realtors to easily search for clients by name or address to ensure they can find the clients they are looking for in busy times when they are servicing many clients.
Add and Refer Clients
The Add and Refer Client functionality was designed to allow realtors to easily update their Client List with new and existing Clients. The scannable QR code feature allows Clients and realtors to easily add each other to loans with a simple scan.
Loan Information
Loan Information
The loan information page allows realtors to double-click on a specific client's loan and have visibility into every step of the process. Utilizing design patterns optimized for the desktop and mobile experience helps realtors to see the finite details in every step of the loan process regardless of where they are physically located. In addition, realtors and clients are able to opt into receiving push notifications allowing them to stay on top of deadlines, and respond to critical alerts so they can keep the loan process moving forward smoothly.
Results
Strategically working with our clients to identify areas of innovation, developing concept prototypes and user testing them in the Design Thinking innovation workshop allowed us to verify the importance of data visibility and the criticality of communication between realtors, their clients, and mortgage bankers during every phase of the mortgage process. Throughout the 5 days of the collaborative workshop, we identified, proofed, and iterated on several concepts resulting in a near and midterm roadmap. We immediately signed another contract with our clients for an additional year and began designing iterating and testing new concepts and sprinting through the design of a new Rocket Pro Insights platform that is scalable and meets the needs of both the end users, the business, and all of the humans contributed to building it.
